Ashley HomeStore — Local services in Ottawa

Absolutely unacceptable experience — Ashley Furniture (bad customer support, inferior quality & overpriced)

I purchased two bed frames in-store on January 2, 2025 — a Queen frame and a Full frame with a box spring — and nearly three months later, I'm still dealing with the aftermath.

The Queen frame arrived with a cracked headboard, scuffed footboard, and was damaged further during installation by the so-called "white glove" service. These "professionals" left multiple scuff marks and stains on my new house walls and cracked the frame further during forced assembly because the pieces didn’t even fit together properly. After seeing the damage, I asked the installers to take the entire Queen bed back. It took three separate calls and two weeks to finally get a refund issued to my credit card.

The Full bed frame came with completely warped horizontal support beams, which were unusable. I kept the frame and box spring but sent the defective wooden beams back during the first delivery, expecting a quick resolution. It’s now been over a month, and I still haven’t received the replacements. When I followed up, I was told it would take another 2–4 weeks due to delays. Meanwhile, the bed frame just sits there, unfinished and unusable — an eyesore in my guest room with the mattress and box spring leaned up against the wall like clutter.

The delivery was delayed twice before all of this, each time with the same generic excuse: “Delayed from the manufacturer.” And when I eventually asked for a refund for the Full bed, I was told I wasn’t eligible because only items returned within 48 hours of delivery qualify — as if a product that arrives incomplete and broken should still be considered successfully delivered. It’s like delivering a chair with three legs and calling it done.

This entire experience has been exhausting. I’ve had to sleep on a mattress on the floor, field constant phone calls and dead-end customer service texts, all while working full-time. The amount of time, energy, and frustration this has caused is ridiculous — especially considering I later went to IKEA, bought a bed frame for 25% of the cost, assembled it myself, and was sleeping comfortably that same night.

Ashley Furniture has failed at every stage: quality control, logistics, installation, and customer service. For a company of this scale, the lack of accountability and support is unacceptable.

Avoid Ashley...

Edit to add: Ashley never contacted me (Their comment below was clearly for optics only).

If I could only the review the product, this would be a much more favourable review. But Ashley is a Hydra, with many heads, none of which communicate with each other or with the customer. We had a great salesperson, who told us our "quick ship" items would be delivered in 2-3 weeks, with free shipping, and no interest financing.

After they failed to keep the delivery promise, and pushed the date multiple times, my trust was eroded and I escalated on every front of the business. I was finally given a date 2 months after my purchase, which they said I was "lucky" to receive because many people wait 5-6, even 9 months for their furniture! They also told me that the "free shipping" they promised me was now impossible because I was out of their delivery area. I was charged an extra $150 for my "free shipping" and then they confessed that delivery doesn't include bringing the furniture inside the house!

When I tried to cancel, because we were living in an empty house and only bought due to the "quick ship" promise, they tried to charge me a 10% penalty - an unjustifiable expense considering they said the furniture was in the warehouse already (thus the quick ship promise). After a stressful set of exchanges with the store, they finally agreed to waive the penalty fee if it didn't arrive on that 2 month date, and upgraded to "white glove delivery" (aka bringing it inside your house) at no extra cost. So I agreed to wait.

Finally the furniture got here and after a couple of weeks I wondered why I hadn't gotten a bill. I decided to contact Fairstone, and found out that they don't provide statements, or explication of how or when to pay, or even an account number, and were planning to charge me a 33% interest rate on the first payment which apparently was coming due in 3 days!

Basically Fairstone sets you up for failure by not sending you any account terms or statements. Good thing I thought to contact them. I paid the whole damn thing off in one fell swoop (which btw didn't include the waived delivery fee Ashley promised).

This whole exchange has been horrible, exhausting, and laborious. I will NEVER buy from Ashley again. They should be ashamed of themselves for these underhanded and unreliable...

Update - as noted by others, the "Response by the Owner" is purely for appearances sake. I reached out to Ashley as they requested. After a few days of no response, I reached out again. I was told they had asked to store to contact me. Seems weird, since the store is where I had the issue, but OK. Waited a few more days. Nothing. Reached out again. Nothing.

They have no interest in resolving their obvious quality and customer service issues. Beware!

Ordered a kitchen set in February 2022. Table, 4 chairs and a bench. Received the delivery in August. Frustrating, but OK, COVID supply chain issues, I get it.

While assembling, the products had the following issues: Bench looked like it had been dropped, as one corner was damaged Chair # 1 was missing hardware and couldn’t be assembled Chair # 2 had a broken frame and couldn’t be assembled Chair #3 did not stay flat on the ground

I didn’t bother trying to assemble the last chair or the table. Called various numbers, getting the run around. Eventually spoke to store manager, who offered $100 and “white glove delivery” in order to keep the business. Defective items were picked up in September. All seemed good. Approx one month later, I called the store to find out when the new product would be delivered. I was told they didn’t see any order on my account. A call to another number confirmed that nothing had been done on the account since the pick-up. Store manager called me to discuss, claimed I had never spoke to him before. Said he would do what it took to keep the business and would call back in 15-20 minutes. I told him he had one chance to keep the business. 2.5 hours later he calls to say the order has placed. I asked about what was going to be done and he said he would honor the $100 credit and white glove delivery. To which I responded, no thanks and told him I'd be cancelling the order and wanted a full refund. Which they have honored, no administration charge was made.

One star as they had my $2,500 for 9 months, delivered inferior product, are difficult to reach to get answers, and dropped the ball when they never placed the new order. Very disappointed in the quality of product and...